Movie watching and story telling

I might have mentioned this before but let me say it again anyways.
Kavitha (my wife) and I watch a lot of movies. We watch them in five
different languages. Being a storyteller I like movies with powerful
stories. If the story and direction are good, I sometimes get so
engrossed that I forget myself. Of course, I know that you don’t care
about my movie watching habits. The point I want to make is different
but I wanted to set the context first.

It is always fun to watch
the reactions of the people after the movie. There are always some
people who will endlessly analyze the minor glitches in the logic of
the movie and comment and finally conclude that the director of the
movie does not have enough brains. Otherwise how could he miss these kinds of details?

What
I can’t stop wondering about is that these people know most movies are
fictional and the director has to crunch a lifetime of events into
three hours. It’s a lot of work.

So, here is my point: While its fun to find fault in the logic,
they need to extend the same kind of rigorous analysis to other stories
that they hear in their real life. Example: When they are going after a
goal and their friends may say something like “You can’t do it”, “It’s
dumb”, “It’s impossible” and follow up with some stories to back up
their claims, it’s important to check the logic in those stories.

Why do you think that real-life stories get a different treatment?

I think I have one answer for this. People are always looking for “stories of convenience.”
Chasing a big dream/goal is a lot of hard work. When someone proves to
them with a story that it’s futile to go after a goal or a dream,
believing in that story will create some convenience. There is not a
lot of hard work to do to give up on something. If you don’t believe
those stories, then the saga has to continue. If you believe, we just
have to feel sad or feel victimized. You see, feeling victimized is a
lot easier than continuing the saga.